Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Second Sundering - A Bit of Lore

Yes, I think that would be one good idea. I don't necessarily think Larian's premise is bad, I just don't like how they conducted the narrative and everything is so explicit and escalates quickly.

That's...one of the most bizarre comparisons I've ever come across (i.e., Dostoyevsky <-> BG3).

Yeah. I get your point. I feel the same in some ways.

My point, though, was that Larian's story isn't as far off from BG and FR storytelling as I was originally thinking. When you compare what they are doing so far with all that Second Sundering stuff, yeah, it fits right in. Is it ideal? Meh. Maybe. Maybe not. But it fits with what WotC has done with the world.

I agree. Definitely was like, "Wha?"

I don't know if 'escalates' is the right word, for the same reasons people feel distant from Tav, there's is no real time spent to acclimate you to the setting, there's really no time spent to just inhabit the world before you're thrown off a cliff. (then pushed off a spaceship) But I might be a little optimistic in this regard, because I have to think there will be something that does this eventually, if for no other reason than to introduce the origin character you're playing as to us. I don't know, but if they expect to rely on telling us these things as we go, it'll require a very deft hand at incorporating exposition into the narrative, a narrative we have a lot of control over.

Yes. I agree with this. No real time spent acclimating. I remember my first question in my first playthrough. Where am I? Astarion doesn't know. SH doesn't know. The fishermen say, "Middle of nowhere" and I was immediately like, "Ball park please? Near Neverwinter, Tethyr, The Dales... Before you say anything else, at least give me some idea where I am. Oh, and BTW, I deduced there might be a settlement nearby. Could you tell me where? At least a general direction."

But no. Gale doesn't say, Lae'zel, Gimblebock, you can't ask Withers or Zevlor... Ah finally... A random Tiefling on the wall. At last, now I know. Tenday from BG between there and Elturel.

But...um...closest settlement? Anyone? I said at the beginning there must be one. Fresh water and all. They don't even really tell me where Risen Road actually is, and I don't ask. So, I found myself struggling to acclimate to everything. I remember that. I couldn't figure out who did what and when and where and why for the majority of the first playthrough. The entire story had to be discovered after playthrough after playthrough.

And, btw, I found out much after my first playthrough that a bulk of the story is in books. That was a huge shock. I'm used to games where the books are supplements. If you don't read them, no biggie. They're mostly about random things if you're interested. It's weird to me that you just so happen to find all these books that all seem to have something to do with your story, and unless you find them all, you may miss pieces of the puzzle. You have to really pour through them and analyze them to really get it.

My first playthrough, I thought Moonhaven WAS the settlement your character mentions on the beach, that it had recently been destroyed. I mostly ignored the books because I was like, "Meh. I should get the main story just from playing the game, and that's all I care about."

Foolish fool! Little did I know I would have to create my own timelines and try to piece it all together to really firmly grasp what I even theorize happened. Do I truly know yet? No. Just theories, but at least I've been able to mostly piece it together, after 500 hours of gameplay.

The point of all this is to say that it's definitely hard to acclimate at all to the setting. It takes a LOT of time and effort to truly know what's going one and where you are and when what happened, and many of us are STILL trying to figure stuff out. I know it's only EA and all, but DANG it's rough to figure out.

So yes, you hit the nail on the head for me. THAT is definitely how I feel. It is fun and stuff, but at the end of the playthrough, it truly leaves you wondering, "What the heck just happened? Why did I really do the things I did?"

AH yes...the Second Sundering. I had such high hopes for it once upon a time. One of the big selling parts of 5e Forgotten Realms was going to be how WoTC was going to fix the Spellpague and return the Realms to the one that so many fans were yearning for.

Instead of a return to the 'golden days' of the Realms, got some half-baked half-measures. A setting that sorta kinda looks like pre-Spellplague Toril if you squint and try not to think too hard about it, with worldbuilding logic that comes apart at the slightest bit of scrutiny, that's weighed down with 4e-era baggage in both a foundational and casual sense. A place where significant areas of the world haven't even been touched since the edition launched and where existing canon can and will get rewritten seemingly on a whim. A murky, ill-defined setting that where nothing really feels like it matters that just makes me want to play in 2e/3e again.

Thank goodness for BGIII, because it's really the only thing holding my interest in the current iteration of the Realms atm.

Twenty-plus years is a long time; our collective attention span has dwindled to a vestige.

I can't fault people for being critical to the setting because of this confusing and messy "lore". The Spellplague and the 100 year time leap is to date the worst thing to have ever happened to the Forgotten Realms setting. It was in effect nuking half the world, and killing half of the gods known, not to mention causing the death of countless iconic novel characters due to the 100 year leap from 1370s to the 1470s DR. It was definitely WotC going against express wishes of the fans and going against Ed Greenwood's (the creator of the setting) vision as well that of many other FR designers.

The Sundering was essentially trying to put a bandaid on a giant impact crater, by conveniently resurrecting from the grave many countries, gods and characters that were destroyed by 4E, but still maintaining the 100 year leap brought by 4E. So 5E is in a way a soft reboot since it tries to emulate the feel and tone of the original setting more so than 4E, but it fails to it properly do so since it is not the proper reboot it should be, because it still has this shoddy 4E lore in it's tapestry.

But, let's not forget that somehow all our favorite characters are still alive, like Minsc and Boo and Volo... Somehow.

They have sort of set a chaotic tone, and that was my point. By trying to reset the beloved world they've created a story that is now quite insane. So how does one pull back from such chaos and turmoil to settle into a reborn world and make it normal D&D?

You could, in theory, pull it off, but that's not really the direction that's been set. What's been set is gods warring and counter warring and cities catapulted into the Hells, etc. That is the tone and pace set prior to this game. No wonder Larian is continuing it

these are a few information that I copied from Fandom page that I think that possibly relates to what's going on in BG3.

For others deities (like Shar) the Second Sundering resulted in a loss of power and influence. The Lady of Loss suffered greatly in the wake of the defeat of the Shadovar and the destruction of the city of Shade in the battle with the forces of Myth Drannor. Telamont Tanthul and most of the Princes of Shade were also killed, further weakening the goddess of darkness (probably the reason why we see so many Sharrans' work/influence in the game).

Mystra was still able to directly commune with her remaining Chosen. (how Gale got hooked up with Mystra).

The Dead Three, greatly reduced in power, decided to remain on Toril, living as quasi-divine mortals, to spread the word of their return, gather more worshipers, and influence events in their favour.

I guess the life experiences will vary wildly between the races

How about a roughly 120 drow? I mean a male drow sorcerer will have a pretty rough time in Menzoberranzan during the Spellplague... And once the main effects Spellplague was over, he was used as a guinea pig by the priestesses until the wild magic backfired. That can explain why he is a bit messed up (not as much as the drow sorcerers you encounter in EA, though).

P.S. It's nice that most of the god pantheon (including the Dark Seldarine ) is restored.

"IN A WORLD GONE MAD... six random strangers must come together to defeat an unprecedented threat... but first, they must survive!"

Larian is clearly making a blockbuster epic, not just a computer game!

And it is a world gone mad, the second sundering was a crazy time and the repercussions are still being played out. And just now, an entire city was literally ripped from reality and sent to hell, and then came crashing back.

Excellent thread and actually helps me quite a bit to flesh out one of my characters.

Exactly. And that was my point. If you notice, the D&D Campaign called Descent into Avernus, is labeled: Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. So, not only are they making a sequel to BG1 and 2, but they are also making a sequel to Descent into Avernus AND the Second Sundering AND the Spellplague. To slam on the brakes and make it a lowkey game with very few extremes doesn't really make sense.

Sure, WotC was trying to reset the world to what it had been, but this game doesn't fall into the "Things have settled and everything is returning to normal," stage of history yet. Literally, the Second Sundering ended within the last 5 years, AND Elturel descended into the Hells.

Yeah, it's still a messed up world by the time this game takes place. I no longer will criticize Larian for the crazy high-strung pace and crazy, off-the-wall extreme events.

Think of it like post-war World War II. Was the world at peace and back to normal 5 years afterwards? No. There was still a LOT of conflict and fear and craziness going on for decades afterwards. That's how I'm viewing this, now, as well. 5 years after the Second Sundering ended, LOTS of factions exist and they're not laying down their weapons just yet to make peace. Oh no! They're quite active and hoping to claim what they can before the dust settles.

There is an abundance of blame to go around; Wizards of the Coast and Larian can easily share the bounty .

Lol. Sure